THE AIGUILLE DU CHARDONNET AND THE AIGUILLE DU TOUR
The aspect of the Grand Combin--Topography--Weather conditions
for a successful raid--A classification of peaks--The Orny
nivometer--The small snowfall of the High Alps--The shrinkage
of snow--Its insufficiency to feed the glaciers--The Aiguille
du Tour--Ascent of Aiguille du Chardonnet--The St. Bernard
hospice--Helplessness of the dogs--The narrow winter path--The
monks’ hospitality--Their ski--The accident on the Col de
Fenêtre--“Ce n’est pas le ski.”
The Val de Bagnes, the Val d’Entremont, which leads up to the pass of
the great St. Bernard, and the Val Ferret are comparatively little
frequented by Englishmen, even in the height of the summer season. Why
it should be so is not quite clear. There is no finer group in the Alps,
from Tyrol to Dauphiné, than the Grand Combin and Mont Velan group. As
seen from Lake Champex, or from almost any point of vantage in the Val
de Bagnes, the group of the Combins and abutting snow-clad tops forms
one of the grandest pieces of mountain architecture that can be imagined,
one of a character that is somewhat uncommon, for the breadth and width
of the lines are more striking here than in the usual type of mountains
tapering up to a peak. The snow-fields and icefalls are magnificent,
while the altitude of this group (Grand Combin 4,317 metres, or 14,164
feet) enables it to rank beside Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa, and the Mischabel
range, eclipsing the Finsteraarhorn and Piz Bernina.
If the Englishman is not so often seen in summer in that region as he
might be, I am sure that in winter none have yet visited on ski the
valleys of Bagnes, Entremont and Ferret, with the exception of a party
about which I may have something to say in another chapter. The writer of
these lines has, therefore, an excellent chance of introducing a novel
field to the British ski-runner. He spent an eight-days’ week in March,
1907, upon a raid in the valleys above named, ranging from one to another
on ski, with two friends, one of whom was a youth of eighteen, and the
other a well-known Valaisan ski-runner, Maurice Crettex, from Champex.
A knowledge of topography being absolutely essential to one’s safety in
High Alp ski-running, even the most expert runner will take care that
at least one of his party possesses that knowledge to perfection. The
runner who takes the risk of wasting some of his strength--or time on
short winter days--upon errors in direction, is little short of a fool.
Owing to steep slopes and complicated ground, the slightest topographical
mistake may cause a fatal waste of precious time--and of a man’s
useful energy, the fund of which is limited in a town or plain dweller,
who only occasionally tries his physical endurance in winter at a high
altitude.
[Illustration: FERRET--ENTREMONT--BAGNES.
(Reproduction made with authorisation of the Swiss Topographic Service,
26.8.12.)
To face p. 182.]
A raid on ski is not a raid if it is interrupted by stress of weather.
It is then best described as a commonplace misadventure. The intending
raider must trust to chance, assisted by a careful reading of the daily
reports of the weather issued from Zürich. These reports now very usually
distinguish between High Alp weather and the conditions prevailing during
the same periods in the lake and river region. When there is a scientific
prospect of fog over the lakes and rivers, this means that the air is
still, and that the sun shines upon every mountain rising above four,
five, or six thousand feet, as the case may be. A wind arising from north
or east will not interfere with the raid (except in the matter of cold),
but a gale from west or south will bring it to an abrupt end, and be
attended with the utmost danger if the warning of a falling glass is not
immediately acted upon.
During the eight days that this raid lasted, the weather was absolutely
steady, fine, and windless, the sun and moon vying uninterruptedly with
each other to extinguish darkness. We suffered at no time from the cold
after sunset or in club huts, and basked all day long in the sun’s direct
heat and in the rays reflected from the snows. The temperature fell
at night to 10 or 15 degrees under zero Centigrade, and rose to most
extraordinary readings during the day. We were dressed in the warm, tough
material used by all competent mountain climbers even in the height of
summer, with strong thick boots, and never for a moment suffered from
cold feet.
Thanks to the above circumstances and to a happy concourse of every
advantage, my two companions and myself were the first human beings
who ever smoked their pipes and cigars in winter, and sat in their
shirt-sleeves on the top of the Aiguille du Tour, Aiguille du Chardonnet,
and Grand Combin. The latter summit was attempted by one of my colleagues
at Bâle (Mr. O. D. Tauern, the German gentleman mentioned in another
chapter). But the most gallant efforts failed to bring him and his
friends to the very top, though the tour was a complete vindication of
winter mountaineering on ski. An account of their expedition appeared in
the Annual (1908) of the _Schweizer Ski-Verband_.
A ski-raid upon the giants of the Alpine world does not necessarily mean
that the raider sets his ski upon the brow of the conquered adversary.
Such a pretension would be pedantic. The summits of the Alps may, for the
ski-runner, be divided into three classes, strictly according to their
conformation, whether they be small or great, Alpine or only sub-Alpine.
There is the class which is inaccessible under winter conditions, because
those summits are then led up to by slopes so sharp or insecure that
neither ski nor boot can reasonably be used upon them. That class we
reject altogether. Another class consists of mountains, such as the
Diablerets, Wildhorn, Wildstrubel, the tops of which are led up to by
slopes eminently fitted for ski, both upwards and downwards. A third
class consists of summits which cannot be reached on ski, because they
are rock-pinnacles, but which can be _only_ conveniently approached on
ski. This class, to my mind, is the best, as it combines ski-running with
rock-climbing. The Dufour Spitze of Monte Rosa would be the grandest
example in this category.
Grand Combin, approached on the north side from the Plateau des Maisons
Blanches, belongs to the same class as Diablerets, Wildhorn, and
Wildstrubel. But if the ascent be varied by climbing the rocks _viâ_
Combin de Valsorey, a course which I found as easy and comfortable in
winter as in summer, the Grand Combin passes into a--to my mind--higher
class. The Aiguille du Chardonnet and the Aiguille du Tour, to the tops
of which there is from no side a continuous way on snow, are other
typical instances.
Any one who would follow in our footsteps and perform, like us, an eight
or ten days’ ski-running and rock-climbing raid, will find every useful
indication as to programme and distribution of time in the following
description:--
The raid comprises three parts: First, Aiguille du Tour and Aiguille du
Chardonnet; second, Great St. Bernard, and Val Ferret back to Orsières;
third, Grand Combin, and back to Martigny.
The ski-runners will leave Orsières at about 7 o’clock a.m., and proceed
on their first day to the Cabane d’Orny, or to the Cabane Dupuys, which
lies still higher. The Cabane d’Orny being quite comfortable, the
vertical displacement from Orsières (890 metres) to the site of that hut
(2,692 metres) will probably be found a sufficient effort to justify one
in leaving the higher hut severely alone that day. The Cabane d’Orny may
be reached either by following the bed of the Combe d’Orny from Orsières,
or _viâ_ Chalets de Saleinaz, from Praz de Fort. We found both lines of
access equally good, but information as to the best at any given time of
the winter season should always be obtained from those locally acquainted
with snowcraft. The ascent to the hut being continuous, the ski-runner
will save much time, and save up much energy, in using a contrivance
against back-slip, whichever may be the one he favours.
There is near the Cabane d’Orny, against a flight of rocks, a nivometer.
This is an apparatus for recording the height at which the snow may rise
against a rock face. Persons of an observant turn of mind are requested
to read the nivometer (which consists of horizontal bars of red paint,
bearing each a number at regular intervals) and to enter in the hut-book
the date of the observation. This is one of the many lame devices which
have been contrived to measure the snowfall at a given spot during the
year. It is supposed that interesting data, and points of comparison from
year to year, may thus be collected. And these, with observations made at
other places in the glacier zone, are digested and published from time to
time.
There is no doubt that the nivometer will show every day in the
year--though it will not be so often noticed--the height at which the
snow stands against the face of that rock. But how much information can
it give about the snowfall? Snow cannot find its true level on the face
of a rock against which it is blown about by the wind and where it is
interfered with by the temperature of the stone, sometimes heated by the
sun and sometimes colder than the air surrounding it.
Snow is not like water or air. It is not an elastic consistent substance
or a uniform fluid, like gas, seeking its own level or settling down
upon a surface. It falls unevenly upon an uneven ground. It melts or
accumulates, shrinks or flies about according to its local situation,
and, within a given time, the nivometer will give very contradictory
readings. A snow gauge is no easy thing to establish. When rain falls it
is easily measured, because, in the course of nature, it is mere water.
Not so with snow.
What is measured by the Alpine nivometers is the height of the snow
lying at a certain place on a given day. Density cannot be checked. Yet
it operates immediately after the snowfall. This mode of mensuration
gives no reliable clue. Some of the snow was carried away by the wind
that would have remained on a windless day. Some has been blown from
elsewhere, in what proportion it is impossible to tell. How much has
melted depends on the sun heat, and the amount of this deficiency no
instrument is there to record. A storm may have intervened. Another may
have blown the snow flat, concentrating the total mass within a smaller
compass. Another may have piled it up in abnormal wreaths.
The science of snow measurement is quite in its infancy. When it is
developed it will probably be on lines very different from those at
present followed, and the results cannot be foretold.
Natural nivometers should be raised above the surface like dovecots and
set up in wide-open spaces, in situations exposed to the four winds of
heaven. They should be able to receive on all sides the snow moving in
the air. They should be in the shape of a cone with long, gently sloping
sides. And even then they would not prove much, unless the snow they had
collected was gauged after every fall and the apparatus swept clean and
prepared to receive the next fall on a smooth surface.
It would then probably be found that the amount of snow falling on the
glaciers of the Alps is much smaller than we are apt to imagine. In any
case, the depth of the snow that finds a permanent station upon the rock
and ice surface of the Alps, till spring, is only a fraction of the
depth of snow that would be obtained by adding together each volume of
snow that might be gauged after each separate snowfall. Snowflakes form
an aggregate which gradually passes into a conglomerate. They lie at
first like the pieces of a game of spillikins, at different angles with
one another. By degrees the crystals lose their shape. The edges of the
prisms die out. The air that circulated between them is expelled. A hard
texture takes the place of the flimsy structure of the first moment. In
this process of reduction in volume and of increase in density, cracks
are generated in the mass. They are at first potential and remain latent
till wind-pressure, or the footfall of man, determines the bursting open
of the surface, accompanied by a report which sometimes unnecessarily
alarms the unwary, and at other times is a sure sign of a dangerous
snow-quake.
The depth of the snow is also modified by a process of sublimation which
causes it to shrink rapidly. The atmosphere while re-absorbing the air
expired by the snow, also re-assimilates some of its moisture, even
without the suggestion of a thaw.
The outcome of so many efficient causes may be summed up in one word:
shrinkage. But, as snow almost always is wind-driven when it falls,
a large portion of the quantity follows in the air a course parallel
to the wind, and (when it strikes obliquely the smooth and slippery
surfaces--old snow, ice, rock surfaces--over which it travels instead of
locating itself upon them) it is impelled forward, and sweeps along till
it can find a lodgement against a solid protuberance, or is dropped over
the edge of some break in the surface, out of the reach of the wind, when
it finds a resting-place and gets piled up. This is another reason why
one meets with less snow on the wind-swept, high-lying surfaces than in
the middle zone of the Alps.
A third effective cause is to be found in the clouds. Snow-laden clouds
do not generally unload themselves at a very high altitude. They form
themselves in belts on the lower flanks of each range and pour forth
their contents nearer the grazing and forest zone than one would be led
to expect when one looks up towards them from the bottom of a valley.
We then see the basement and sides of the cloud masses. We project their
vertical lines almost infinitely into space. This is the kind of delusion
to which we are subject when we look at a house from the street-level
or, _vice versâ_, when we look down from a roof on to the pavement. The
actual volume of snow whirling above our heads is considerably thinner
than we assume. This is the case particularly during the winter season in
Switzerland, as winter balloonists may testify.
So, without entering any further into the scientific aspects of this
question, we wish here to note provisionally that a properly conducted
nivometric survey of the Alps might show that the winter snow storage is
quite out of proportion with the quantities required to replenish the
upper ice-forming reservoirs to whose function so much importance is
attached in the current theories about glaciers.
From the hut try the ascent of the Aiguille du Tour the following
morning. On ski, along the easy slant of the Glacier d’Orny, and then
by an easy climb, lasting one hour at the most, on good dry rock (3,531
metres = 11,615 feet); this undertaking will be a great delight. The
upper reaches of the Glacier du Trient and of the Glacier d’Orny are one
of the most magnificent ski-grounds that man can imagine. They can be
taken advantage of both before sunset on the day of one’s arrival at the
hut, which should be reached by two o’clock, and on the next day, for a
departure at eight from the hut should enable you to be on the Aiguille
du Tour by eleven, which leaves the whole afternoon for runs.
[Illustration: THE VALSOREY GLEN.
To face page 190.]
Your third day can be employed in ascending the Aiguille du Chardonnet
(12,585 feet) as follows: ski up to the Col du Tour; ski down the pass
facing west, and leaning a bit to your left; then up the slope from right
to left (that is facing full south) at first, and then full west, along
the foot of Aiguille Forbes. From the moment you have passed that point
the ski-runner becomes a climber. You may have to cut a few steps to
reach the eastern arête, which runs from the dip on the west flank of
Aiguille Forbes to the top. The _arête_, of course, requires rope and
much skill in manipulating it.
In splendid weather, the rock being free from snow or ice, and, into the
bargain, well known to one of the three of us, we did the climb without
experiencing anywhere a moment’s delay. Time-table: Started from Cabane
d’Orny, 5.50 a.m.; reached Col d’Orny, 7.15 a.m.; crossed Plateau du
Trient to Col du Tour by 8.15 a.m.; passed foot of Aiguille Forbes by
10.20 a.m.; set foot on _arête_ by 12 a.m.; reached top at 1.25 p.m.;
completed descent of _arête_ by 3.20 p.m.; resumed our ski at 4.20 p.m.;
skied back to Col du Tour by 5.40 p.m.; got home by 7 o’clock.
Our rests were: Twenty minutes at 8.15 a.m., twenty minutes at 10.20
a.m., thirty-five minutes at 1.25 p.m., twenty-five minutes at 4.20 p.m.,
twenty minutes at 5.40 p.m.
For ski tours in the Mont Blanc range, consult the maps by Barbey,
Imfeld, and Kurz.
The fourth day of this raid was employed in an easy and very fast run
down to Orsières, then on a vehicle to Bourg St. Pierre, whence four
hours on ski bring the runner to the Hospice du Grand St. Bernard, the
gates of which are open night and day to all-comers. A long night in a
most comfortable bed, after a most substantial meal, and followed by a
plentiful breakfast next day, made sufficient amends for the nights spent
in the Cabane d’Orny.
In summer the hospitality extended by the St. Bernard monks to passing
tourists--one may not spend more than two nights under their roof--is
somewhat perfunctory, because they are oppressed by numbers. In winter,
on the contrary, they are left to themselves. Time and solitude are
somewhat heavy and passers-by of some education are the more welcome.
Within a lap of the hospice we were spied by the famous dogs. They barked
and made but a poor pretence at coming towards us. They were terribly
handicapped in the snow, which we lightly brushed with the flat of our
ski. No wonder they floundered: the floury snow was about 6 feet deep.
Their fore and hind quarters went under, and then hove again into sight,
while they swung out of one hole into the next, as nutshells rising and
falling with the waves.
This situation threw some fresh light upon their legendary life-saving
occupation. The tables were turned. We were much better prepared to save
them from suffocation than they to lend us a helping paw. In fact, one
huge beast’s efforts to get on board my ski somewhat perplexed me.
We had struck out our own line, in coming up, across the surges of the
snow. The farther from any path, the happier the ski-runner. But we saw
enough of the winter track to understand the usefulness of the dogs. The
track is about 2 feet wide. It cuts in and out of the summer road, and
consists simply of the narrow footpath which pedestrians and the monks
have trodden hard. They manage to keep it open from summer to spring by
directing upon it the little traffic there is. The snow hardens after
each fall when walked on and raises the pathway by so much, building up
by degrees a kind of elevated viaduct on which to remain is the condition
of safe progress. Step out to the right or to the left by one inch, you
drop down several feet into the drifts.
What this might mean, in the fog or during a blizzard, to those weary,
ill-shod, ill-clad, under-fed Italian labourers who still choose that
mode of transit to save their railway fare under the Simplon, we could
easily imagine. The dogs, on the other hand, would keep upon the track
and scent in what snow-covered spot the poor trespasser had missed his
footing and strayed. The remainder would be spade and shovel work for the
charitable monks.
Easter being early that year, Lent was drawing to an end. The house was
wrapped in silence. The bells being hushed, a rattle croaked along the
passages instead. But Lenten hospitality may be lavish and fishes must
swim at all times, as the capital trout from the Dora Baltea experienced,
that was floated on the best of wines down to a worthy home of rest. On
the next morning we met a procession; they were calves being driven up
from Italy. They looked sickly against the pure sunlit snow, but they
capered and frolicked, and booed with joy. Well might they do so as long
as the bells were silent. But after!
Years before this, the monks had been driven to the use of boards for
getting about. They invented a rude ski wanting in the essential feature
of modern planks, free action for the heel. With them the heel was
fastened down to the boards. They sprinted and punted about with the
help of a long stout pole, achieving quite a style of their own. With
their long robes waving, and swinging their gaffs from side to side, now
to steer, and now to propel their unsteady craft, with arms alternately
raised and lowered, they cut very picturesque figures against a terribly
bleak background, with their dogs pounding after them, till we lost sight
of them behind the corner like a flock of mountain choughs.
My next day saw me across the Col de Fenêtre (2,773 metres = 8,855
feet), along the whole Val Ferret, back to Orsières, a most magnificent,
perfectly easy and reposeful trip. From point to point, that is, from
Orsières up the Val d’Entremont to the Col du Grand St. Bernard, and
through the Col de Fenêtre, down the Val Ferret, back to Orsières,
the ski-ing is first-rate, these valleys running on parallel lines,
downwards, from south to north. The crossing from one col to the other,
upon south-facing slopes, is the only unpleasant piece of ski-ing, though
quite safe and easy.
A fatal accident befell here a party of runners a few years after. They
intended running up the Val Ferret to the hospice when they committed
a serious mistake. As the map shows, the summer path winds corkscrew
fashion from the bed of the valley to the lakes of Ferret. Now, when a
ski-runner is seen upon a steep winding path, or ploughing his way up
the sides of it, it often means that he has not reconnoitred the skiers’
route on his map. Those young men cut into a snow bulge, the snow ran out
through the slit and overwhelmed one of them.
Those bulges are a most treacherous invention of the snow-fiend. They
are best likened to an egg-shell full of sand, with some compressed air
imprisoned between the shell and the sand. Break the crust, the air runs
out with a puffing sound, and the snow, freed from pressure, begins to
trickle through the hole, enlarging it. Then the whole mass, blowing
itself out and thrown out of balance, comes down.
The study of the map would have shown to the victims of this phenomenon
of nature that however much the corkscrew might be the right way up or
down for loaded men and cows (the pack and the cow between them determine
the lie of every mountain path), such a path was not for men mounted on
skiffs that could choose their course upon the country-side with the same
liberty of choice as a ship steering upon the open sea.
This brings back to my mind a regulation supposed to have been issued by
a certain War Office on the Continent. Some zealous officers had been
coaching their men in the use of ski upon open fields, and some trifling
injuries had been entered by the army medico in his report sheet.
Next autumn a circular was received in every army corps recommending
officers to teach ski-ing on roads only!
Last winter I was trotted up a steepish and narrow winding path by some
well-meaning friends who had acquired their ski-ing from a “big” man.
Some patches of the road under wood were sunk in deep snow; others, in
the open, were ice; others bare earth and stones, and the whole was so
well banked in that side-stepping was impossible.
When I mildly remonstrated--after, not before, discipline would forbid--I
was politely told that so-and-so always took his parties up that way. No
doubt, and quite heroic of him, _mais ce n’est pas le ski_.
In the evening of this day, which I reckon as the fifth, a conveyance
carried the three runners, in whom the readers of this chapter may by
now have become interested, to Châble, in the Val de Bagnes, and then
to Lourtier, a convenient starting-point for an attempt upon the Combin
region.
[Illustration]